1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to clothing accessories, and more particularly, wearable accessories for supporting a napkin or the like in position to provide a protective cover over the clothes, for use while dining.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Diners have soiled and stained shirts, ties, blouses and dresses while dining. Both children and adults are sometimes prone to spilling sauces or soups and dropping morsels of food onto their clothing, possibly ruining a favorite garment.
As a result, children are often forced to wear bibs covering part or all of the front torso, and may struggle to avoid having a bib tied around the neck. Gentlemen and ladies may sometimes stoop to wearing a bib, especially at bar-b-ques, crab feasts or the like, but never when engaged in fine dining in a restaurant. Aside from connotations of childishness, bibs are unacceptable to most diners because they are often just gauche sheets of plastic tied about the neck, are uncomfortable against the throat, and seldom compliment one's wardrobe. As a result, most diners will not wear a bib when dining out and so may be forced to forgo a much-desired but possibly messy lobster dinner, to cite but one example.
Children will sometimes take a napkin from the table and stuff or tuck a portion of the napkin down behind a tightly buttoned collar. While expedient, this solution is also not acceptable for a fine dining experience and is not likely to garner favor among gentle people in a diner's company. Both of the above mentioned activities (i.e., wearing a bib and stuffing a napkin in one's shirt collar) seem to suggest to the onlooker that the diner's appearance does not matter and that the diner is about to throw caution to the wind, engaging in a bacchanalian orgy of eating and drinking, with food and drink likely flying about. A diner who merely wishes to keep his or her clothes unstained surely has no desire to convey such an impression.
In the prior art, others have attempted to meet this unresolved need by providing napkin holders for carrying a napkin worn on the diner's front and hung from a button. The various prior art napkin holders have failed to gain widespread acceptance, however, because of difficulty in use, unsightly appearance, strain placed on buttons, the requirement that the wearer have a shirt or blouse with buttons, and other shortcomings.
There has been a long felt need, then for a wearable napkin holder permitting a diner to easily and effectively protect his or her clothing while maintaining an attractive appearance, thereby providing the diner with a comfortable sense of propriety.